The Gate~ Chapter 4

My mission to open the gate of my heart continues. It requires commitment on many levels. It requires more self discipline than I sometimes care to invoke. It requires focus and patience and unclenching of stomach muscles. It requires acute awareness of thoughts rampaging freely through my brain. It requires the practice of self respect and the practice of setting healthy boundaries. It requires staying focused in the present moment.

This heart-opening business is sometimes daunting. To aid myself in my mission, I have committed to practicing Yoga three mornings each week. Yoga is said to open the energy centers of the body, massage the internal organs, increase flexibility and calm the mind. I don't know what kind of Yoga I practice. I've created my own medley of moves and held positions based on the 2 brief adult education classes I've taken. But whatever I'm doing is exhibiting results.

While laying on the floor holding a spinal twist position, I had a burst of compassion well up in me regarding a loved one. A full and total understanding of the childhood traumas that shaped her adult behavior. The carpet was wet from the pull of gravity on my flooding tears.

While standing in the warrior pose, I gleaned another piece of a past life. The one where I took refuge in a European monastery and was saved by the beauty of the architecture and the songs and the healing calmness of its residents. The one that explains my present life magnetism to sacred architecture, chant and the Abbey of the Genesee, 50 minutes east in Piffard, New York.

While holding a position of the sun salutation, I lifted my head and looked out my living room window. The same window I looked out of every day previous. Suddenly, I saw it. Straight ahead. Highlighted. In full view at the end of my curving street.

I saw the Gate.

I felt tingles run the length of my body. Tingles that confirmed my mission was truly unfolding. Tingles that confirmed my instincts about how to help myself are working. Tingles that confirmed Yoga is for me, a gate to the heart, a gate to the mind, and a gate to the Divine.